Prevalence of tobacco consumption in 8th grade schoolchildren, women in fertile age and the general

Abstract

The Ministerial Health Secretariat of the 9th Region saw the need of assessing the present indices of tobacco consumption, so as to work with greater precision on the continuance of the sanitary goals for 20101. Thus it has carried out a study on the Prevalence of Tobacco Consumption in Araucanía. This study, of a quantitative-descriptive character had, as its objective group, 8th grade schoolchildren, women of fertile age and the general population of the 31 communes of the Region. An autoapplied and anonymous survey was carried out on a representative sample. The data were stored and subsequently analyzed with the Excel 2000 program; 8382 surveys were processed. As a result of this survey it was possible to determine that, as a Region, we are within the national average, but it uncovered worrying indices of tobacco consumption in some communes. Thus, 19 communes of the Region present a prevalence of tobacco usage exceeding the national baseline in one or another of the three objective groups. The first objective group were the 8th grade schoolchildren showing a 23.2%, distant from the 20% proposed by the Ministry of Health as the country's limit for the year 2010. Women of fertile age presented a regional average of 28% of tobacco usage, remaining below the sanitary limit of 40%, as suggested. The population of the Region, in general, shows a 36% of tobacco consumption, the country limit for the year 2010 having been placed at 30% in this segment of the population. In this study tobacco consumption of the Mapuche population was also taken into consideration, having registered, in this group a consumption of cigarettes about 26%. 1 National Council for Health Promotion (VIDA CHILE) Ministry of Health, Report for 2003.